What political party am I?

Which political party am I voting for?

Are you confused about which political party to belong to? Me too. I have a political economy blog, and I live and breathe this stuff and yet, I do not feel strongly towards one party and for good reason. The reason is we are all different and one size does not fit all. With political parties we really only have two sizes to chooses from in the USA. That is not a lot.

However, the good news is I have pretty clear ideological views. I have a positive vision of my America, with ideals and concrete solutions based my understanding of Economics and the ideas of the enlightenment.

Look, I do not make friends or enemies based on politics. I believe you can of course marry someone who believes the opposite of you (take the governor of CA for example). What is politics but an abstraction. Therefore, I so not want to turn you off, if you enjoy other parts of my blog. Do not worry if you are not in complete agreement politically with me.

Here are my political views. I a financial and social conservative but also anti-war and pro environment and pro services for the poor. Let me explain.

My Republican parties views

Don’t you want a smaller government?

Balanced budget amendment – Even start paying down some of the debt slowly as it crowds out private investment.

Radical reduction in government spending – Anything government can do individuals can do more efficiently.

Reduction of taxes or near elimination of taxation – For the poor, for the middle class and even for the rich. You should not have to work half your days for another man’s wife. The money you will never really see it again and it will go into some black hole and not really benefit you, or anyone perhaps. America grew rich the first 170 years without direct taxation (something the founding fathers warned against).

Pro-life – You can dislike me on this one, but I believe life is sacred. I live in Krakow with an old WWII German ‘work camp’ 2 minutes away. I walk though this camp often and I can not image other humans having the power to determine who should live or who should not, based on convenience, usefulness or some other criteria. Life is a gift.

School Prayer – Optional moment of silence and not forbidding the word ‘God’ in school. I am for the freedom of religion not the freedom from religion.

But the republicans really burned me when their promise to America was some abstract document. It should be clear: like balance the budget and pay off the debt. They basically promised to eliminate health care and replace it with more military spending for foreign wars, gee whiz that sounds like a deal.

I was born on flag day in Philadelphia. I am basically a Libertarian of course.

My Libertarian views

Anti-Imperialist – The Bush wars were for the extension of the US sphere of influence, and to secure the free flow of oil (Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan) to protect our American way of life. There are many other more oppressed people we could have liberated and we do nothing about in the world. There are terrorist camps in many countries, like Syria for example, but we picked Kuwait and Iraq for the oil and Afghanistan for the oil pipeline. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are oil rich and by coincidence sit on top of Afghanistan who we invaded and Pakistan who we pay. The money could have been better spend on fighting terrorist with improved technology and detection, rather than the WWII style of building tanks and submarines. My father worked in the jet aircraft industry and military is the largest special interest there is in Washington. Wars are won with technology not listening to the generals who are thinking in conventional terms based on things they learned in past wars. If we could ask the generals of WWI in 1939 what went wrong, I think they would say, they were thinking in outdated ways and did not even know it. Focus on the defense of America, rather than imperialism, and we will have less enemies and people to fight and we the surge in innovation coming from the reduction in the crowding out effect will give the USA a real advantage. Firing million dollar missiles in no man’s land on the opposite side of the globe is not as effective as implementing the best facial recognition, lie detection technology in every port of entry to the USA, or much deeper cloud profiling like search engines do etc. Think of why the Soviet Union fell apart, massive investment in conventional arms build up while it was outclassed my US technology. I spend many years studying military history and to defend a country from foreign threats you do not need a bloated military. All the money we spend on this could have been channeled for better use. Ten years of war and it ruined our reputation, lost lives and drove us in debt. We need to be one step ahead of terrorist with high technology or we will have a nuke in one of our cities, not spending our resources occupying some piece of desert on the other side of the globe. And no we can not do both. We have chosen the latter. If we had chosen the former we would be technologically in the future ten years. The Bush wars in the long run cost the USA national security and I feel a little bit safer in Europe than in a US city.

Keep the Internet free - If the government could it would get its meat hooks into the web.

Free Market – If you bailout, either big business like the Republicans do or throw money at the problem like the Democrats do, you will create inefficiencies that will result in years of economic pain. Let the markets work.

School choice – Basically I learned very little in the public school years. Did you? I mean you spent the most productive times of our life in terms of learning just going through the motions. Why not have school choice?

My Democratic views

Guns- I live in Europe and we do not have guns except for hunting and they are hard to get. I live in large city people are not injured with guns. Sure the right to bare arms, but does that mean I can bear a nuclear device? No way. Freedom is a responsibility and a limited good. You can restrict guns.

The environment – You can argue anyway you want, but I do not want to be breathing your pollution. There is something called a public good and taxation on pollution with an earmark for cleaning the environment is not a bad idea. I think America would consume the world if it could.

Social system – I pay US and EU taxes even though I live in Europe. In the EU I get health care and pension and my family gets a university education and many other things. What would I get if I moved back to the USA? Zero. I pay taxes but get nothing. Do you think that is normal? I have no reason to move back. Here in the EU I pay taxes and get something besides billion dollar nuclear submarines. Either cut taxes and privatize social security etc or give working normal Americans a tangible benefit. But taxation and throwing money into a black hole is a waste and unjust. Even the great libertarian Milton Friedman said that a rich society like the USA could help poor. It could be done with a negative income tax or whatever, but not taxes with nothing but foreign wars and payments to lawyers and insurance companies for medical care with jacked up prices.

Social tolerance – You know I am catholic and a family man but I do not really care about issues like homosexuality etc. People can do what they want, we as a nation have bigger fish to fry.

What political party am I? I am a registered Republican but probably closer to Libertarian for life. I usually vote Republican and Libertarian. I do not vote libertarian for the offices of the President of the United States or tight senatorial or representative races for practical reasons. In for the President and tight races I will vote GOP for now. But I have voted Democrat.

I think the Democrats put themselves out there are morally more compassionate, the Libertarians as intellectually superior and the Republicans as the true patriots. Of course all three are not true. Well did you ever read the American folk tale about Rip Van Winkle? Basically the politics and parties changes, but nothing really changed. So yes I love politics but I do not make enemies based on my views. I do not have all the answers.

Mark Biernat’s vision of America

The government that governs least governs best.

My vision for America is a low tax, smaller government, debt free country, that respects the rights of individuals from school prayer to other beliefs and cultures and ideas. I am for the promotion of safer communities with limited guns, cleaner environment and much more wiser defense spending. In the end, I really do care about pro-life. I am very pro-family as I love my family and think a loving family with two parents is the healthiest place for a child be raised. I think I am what the founding father’s might believe if they were alive today. A small libertarian government.

I wrote three two earlier posts on some pluses and minuses of the political affiliations.

If you have not read it, you should read the book War Is A Racket by Smedley D. Butler. He was a Marine Brigadier General that was twice awarded the Medal of Honor and was very much against America’s involvement in foreign wars. He died in 1940 just prior to World War II.

I looked at that book and I will have to read it. I am a Patriot, but I would tend to agree with what I saw in first glance of book War is a Racket. In most cases it is.
I could just go on a ramble here, so you can ignore this but:
This is no conspiracy theory. For example, we liberated Kuwait, because they were and oil rich.
The amount spend on military is really out of control, many military bases in the USA, soldiers are counting boxes and marching around and playing with high-tech conventional things and contractors charge an outragious about of our tax payers dollars for parts and machines that would never cost that much in the private sector.
The real threat to the USA security might unfortunately come (I really hope it does not) when we have our troops are firing million dollar weapons in the desert on the other side of the globe, we will be caught off guard and the argument will be more conventional arms.
One of my friends, who will go unnamed works for the military. I do not know what he does all day, but he lives high on the hog.
My neighbor in Boston was an Airforce Cononel, they got him a flat in Beacon Hill he was chasing girls all day, wining and dining them and all at the tax payers expense attended a couple of lame course.
Of course I respect servicemen who are on the gound fighting these wars, but military is a hugh special interest.
The special interest of the military is sending our young 20 year old boys who should be watching South Park and have sweaty palms when they are talking to girls, instead go into battle and 1000s will be gone forever and never come back and have a chance for love and a family. I would rather have a more smaller even more high tech or effective military focusing on US security not on the other side of the world. I know people can argue they are connected but I tend to think that card is overplayed.
Why should the USA be spending so much around the world on these conventional arms. Many things like Nuclear Submarines cost a fortune to make and operate and we have fleets of them. I think they are produced in Northern Virginia, hmm. Would the money not be better spend on something else, even if it was high-tech security for the USA by tracking of real criminals and treats to our security.
Think about the NSA and CIA and Military intelligence etc and there is so much overlap in what these agencies do. So much redundancy which we pay for and could be used for a more efficient US defense system.
No conventional army will invade the USA. So lets stop building conventional arms en masse and start focusing on the real issues of defense.
I believe the founding fathers did not want to the USA to be another England cira 18th century.
I tend to agree with the tea party, that is low taxes, simple tax code and balanced budget.

I am a registered Democrat but have voted Republican in the last election and will do the same this time. I am a member of the Tea Party. I look at a candidates character and ability to lead. Don’t care if you are purple, black, green, or otherwise – If you can prove you can lead and are a person of character I will vote for you.

Your beliefs on spending belong more in the Libertarian column than Republican. Same can be said for social tolerance.

As long as it’s optional, school prayer is fine. I’d rather it be more of an opt-in than an opt-out though. Environment is also fine. Most Libertarians ascribe to the Tragedy of the Commons theory for economic reasons. There is no reason why you can’t be for a government solution for pollution and still call yourself a Libertarian. I know many Libertarians (myself and Ron Paul included) that are pro-life, although this is highly debated in the Libertarian world.

The only real problem I see is guns. You can call yourself “A Libertarian for gun laws”

You have to step out of the construct of what is traditionally seen as a libertarian view. I think libertarianism is more about economic freedom and the definition of property rights. Social issues are not about the price mechanism and market forces but something totally different. Yes maximizes liberty and freedoms and allow guns for hunting etc, but I can not imagine that there is no limits on guns. I mean we can not allow people to own RPGs and nuclear weapons because all people are not rational and a few unbalanced people can deprive a great number of people of their personal liberties by ending their lives. So rational laws to protect against mentally unstable people are protecting your personal liberties.
I see libertarianism more about small government in economics and religious freedom.

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